Powers/Abilities: Landers possesses superhuman
strength, and can bench-press 15 tons. His skin is resistant to
injury, and can withstand bullets fired from 15 feet away. He
also posseses superhuman endurance, allowing him to exert at peak
level for two hours before fatigue begins to impair his
performance. Strangely, he also possesses rapid hair growth, with
his hair growing half an inch every 24 hours after being cut. Due
to a mental block placed in his mind by the ESPeople, Dave is
immune to any form of mind manipulation.

History: Dave Landers, born in Oshkosh,
Wisconsin on September 21, 1952, had a tragic past. In 1983, his
older brother Mark commited suicide. The following year, his
father died of cancer, and the year following, his mother also
passed away.

(DP7 Annual#1)- On September 20, 1986, after a
night of drinking, Dave awoke in tremendous pain. The effects of
"the White Event" had made him a paranormal, and were
only now being felt. His body began to bulge with muscles, and he
was overcome with pain. Dave called his friend Susan Peterson to
help him, but refused to be treated in a hospital.

BTS- As time wore on, the pain grew more
tremendous. Susan continued to bring Dave food, but the pain was
so great that he decided to kill himself by overdosing on pain
medication.

(DP7#1)- Six days after his power first
manifested, Dave was brought to a hospital for treatment, where
he met Randy O'Brien. Learning they were both paranormals, they
decided to check themselves in at the Clinic for Paranormal
Research, where they entered therapy group C. In the therapy
group, Dave met Stephanie Harrington, who he soon fell for
romantically. When he learnt from O'Brien that the Clinic had a
sinister agenda in gathering paranormals, Dave left the Clinic
with the others in therapy group C.

(DP7#2)- Journeying to his trailer home for
shelter, Dave and the others fought Vice Versa, Shrapnel and
Bloodhound, three paranormals sent by the Clinic. By combining
powers, they were able to defeat them.

(DP7#3)- After mobilizing his trailer home,
Dave and the others were again attacked by the paranormal
hunters. Dave refused to let Randy treat them after they were
injured when their car flipped over. Dave accompanied Stephanie
to her hometown, Sheboygan, where they again encountered the
paranormal hunters.

(DP7#4)- While stopped for dinner at a small
Wisconsin town, Dave was arrested by the local authorities, who
mistook him for "the Wompus", a supposed monster that
was mutilating cattle. Ultimately, Jeff Walters unmasked the true
culprits, local teenagers.

(Untold Tales of the New Universe: DP7#1) - The group came to a Menominee reservation at Keshena, Wisconsin, and befriended a paranormal named Keso, aiding him against his paranormal sister Seka, who was raising the dead with her powers.

(Kickers Inc.#5)- Attacked by Kickers Inc., who
were being controlled by Philip Nolan Voight, Landers fought Jack
Magniconte, and beat him badly.

(DP7#5)- Dave and the others decided to see an
exorcist, despite Dave's atheism, in case their powers were the
result of demonic possession. However, this proved to be a false
lead.

(DP7#6)- Trading in his mobile home for a
Winnebago owned by his uncle Art, Dave decided to return to
Sheboygan with Stephanie and Lenore Fenzl to recover Stephanie's
children, while Randy, Jeff, and Charlotte Beck searched for
Scuzz.

(DP7#7)- While Stephanie kidnapped her
children, Dave ran into her husband, Chuck, who broke a baseball
bat over Dave's head. Furious, Dave threw him through the air,
leaving him horribly injured. Dave brought Stephanie to the
hospital to heal him, but while they were there, agents of the
CIA working for the Clinic captured Stephanie.

(DP7#8)- Attacked by CIA agents in the
Winnebago, Dave was forced to abandon Lenore, and run for his
life.

(DP7#10)- In the snowy wilderness of Wisconsin,
Dave met a hunter named "the Woodsman", who took him
into his home, and returned him to health.

(DP7#11)- Dave spent several months in the
woods with the Woodsman, who taught Dave how to fight. Dave was
grateful to him for his help, but felt unworthy for abandoning
his friends, and was debating returning to the Clinic to rescue
them, when the CIA caught up with him. This time, Dave was saved
by six paranormals calling themselves "the ESPeople".
Unwilling to remain with them, Dave decided to save his friends
from the Clinic, so the ESPeople placed a mental block in his
mind, to prevent him from remembering who they were. Dave had not
gone far before the CIA reappeared, and brought him down with
tranquilizer darts.

(DP7#12)- Reunited with Randy at the Clinic,
Dave attempted to set the others free as well, but found they had
been brainwashed. He and Randy were confronted by the head of the
Clinic, Philip Nolan Voigt, who revealed he was a paranormal, and
fought them. In the course of the battle, Voigt seemingly died
when he entered the body of an Anti-Body he had created, similiar
to Randy's, which Dave then destroyed.

(DP7#14)- As new jobs were assigned around the
Clinic, Dave was initially placed in sanitation, but was later
transferred to security.

(Psi-Force#15)- When Mike Crawley, a new
arrival at the Clinic, panicked, blew up a wall, and ran, Dave
attempted to apprehend him, but he escaped.

(DP7#15)- Dave made notice of the Black Powers,
who had donned new black jackets.

(DP7#16)- When the DDTeens and Black Powers got
into a fight, Dave was summoned by Mothball to end the clash.

(Justice#16)- Along with the others, Dave
followed the story of the "Justice Killer."

(DP7#17)- During an assembly at the Clinic,
Dave had to halt a riot started by the Black Powers. He also
found himself having to deal with Merriam Sorenson, who had a
crush on him.

(DP7#18)- After Jeff ran from the Clinic to
Pittsburgh, after learning his family had been killed when the
city was destroyed, Dave joined with Lenore, Charlotte, Randy,
Mutator, and Merriam to find him. As they travelled through the
remains of Pittsburgh, they fell into a chasm.

(DP7#19)- While the others escaped the chasm,
Dave was left behind, being too heavy to be carried. Falling
further into the chasm, Dave discovered a volcano being created
at the bottom of "the Pitt". He also found Jeff, and
tried to carry him back to the surface, but couldn't make it;
finally, they were saved by the ex-military agent Spitfire.

(DP7#20)- Traumatized by his experience in the
Pitt, Dave nontheless had to combat the paranormal Pit Bull,
whose jaw he broke in the course of their battle. Following the
battle, Dave was apprehended by the military.

(DP7#21)- While being treated in a military
hospital, Dave was approached by Jack Magniconte, now "the
All-American", who informed Dave that the military was
forming a paranormal army.

(DP7#22/The Draft)- Randy, Dave and Jeff were
brought to Fort Benning, drafted into the US military, to serve
as the country's paranormal fighting force. At Fort Benning, Dave
met Bazooka from the Clinic, who revealed the Clinic had been
shut down.

(DP7#23)- Dave's dreams were examined by Lt.
Keith Remsen, in his guise at Nightmask. Through these dreams,
Keith learnt of Stephanie, and her powers to heal.

(DP7#23)- Dave was forced to accompany
Bloodhound to Sheboygan to bring Stephanie to work for the
military. However, Dave was unable to betray her, and struck
Bloodhound down, then told Stephanie to flee the country. Dave
also encountered Scuzz and the DDTeens, and told Scuzz to watch
after Stephanie.

(DP7#24)- Dave broke Bloodhound's nose, and
made for the Canadian border, but was caught, and returned to
Fort Benning. Sgt. Haldeman, a paranormal psychic, attempted to
discipline Dave with his powers, but Dave's mental block knocked
him unconscious. Until his court martial could be held, Dave was
placed in "the Black Hole", an impenetrable pit. The
isolation made Dave go crazy, at one point hallucinating that the
Woodsman had come to rescue him. Finally, Dave beheld a
manifestation of his "dark side", who tried convincing
him to impale himself on a sharpened piece of metal. A
hallucination of Dave's brother Mark tried to talk him out of it,
but failed, and Dave ran himself through the piece of metal.

(DP7#25)- Dave was brought to Fort Benning's
hospital, where Randy operated on him, and saved his life.

(DP7#26)- Having recovered from his bout of
insanity, and the injury he had inflicted on himself, Dave
confessed to Randy that he had been wrong to try and take his
life. He was transferred to a new prison until his court martial
could begin.

(DP7#27)- In exchange for light treatment, the
military sent Dave on a mission to the Pitt with two other
paranormals to recover a missing science team, but once there,
one of the others, "Dirtbag", turned on Dave, and tried
to kill him. In the course of their battle, Dirtbag was killed.
Dave found an immobile Randy, who had come to save him, in the
path of lava, and came to his rescue. By doing this, Dave felt he
had finally redeemed his suicide attempt.

(DP7#28)- Now AWOL, Dave and Randy headed to
New York City when they learnt that Voigt had re-appeared, and
was running for president. When they attempted to confront him,
Voigt sent Stephanie, Charlotte, Merriam, and Chrome (formerly
Spitfire), all under his control, to fight them. Unable to fight
back against Stephanie, Dave was defeated by her and Merriam.
Voigt warned Dave and Randy that if they did anything to stop
him, he would order their friends to commit suicide.

(DP7#29)- The six friends now reunited, took
apartments in New York together. When they were attacked by the
paranormal CIA agent Deadweight, Dave fought back against his
power of gravity-control, but ultimately, it was Stephanie's son
Ben who defeated him, by shooting him with his own rifle.

(Starbrand#18)- Dave and Randy encountered Jake
Burnley, current wielder of the Starbrand. They informed him of
Voigt's intentions, and Burnley tracked Voigt down, and killed
him in battle. However, Dave and Randy wondered if Voigt could
truly be killed.

(DP7#30)- That Christmas, Dave aided the local
"super-hero" Captain Manhattan against his opponents,
the Para-Troop. For Stephanie's Christmas present, he offered to
drive her back home to Sheboygan, and gave she him a kiss in
return.

(DP7#31)- After returning from Sheboygan, Dave
was reunited with Mike Crawley from the Clinic, who told him that
Scuzz had been brainwashed by a cult called "the White
Eventists". Dave stole Scuzz away from them, and tried to
de-program him, but ulimately, had to admit that the cult had
made Scuzz a better person, and let him go his own way. Finally
having given up on Stephanie, Dave got together with Merriam, who
had pined for him all this time.

(DP7#32)- On February 23, 1989, Dave was
shocked to learn of a paranormal called "the Cure",
offering to take away the parabilities of others. That day,
Stephanie returned from Sheboygan, and Dave was forced to choose
between her and Merriam. Merriam took the choice out of his
hands, by leaving him. Ultimately, Dave decided to retain his
powers, afraid that Stephanie might not love him as a normal
person.

(The War#4)- At the conclusion of World War
III, Dave was among those paranormals informed by the Starbrand
that he had removed all of the earth's lethal weaponry.

(Quasar#31)- Two years later, Dave met the
Earth 616 super-hero Quasar, who had fallen into the Omniverse.
Dave and his friends were skeptical at Quasar's claims to be from
another dimension.

Comments: Created by Mark Gruenwald and
Paul Ryan.

Dave has an extensive biographical profile in
DP7#22.

Dave was part of a group of paranormals that
appeared in the comic DP7 (Displaced Paranormals Seven). However,
the group never went by that name, nor any other.

The tombstone of Dave's apparent Marvel
Universe counterpart appears in Avengers West Coast#65. Only this
Dave Landers only lived from 1986-1989. (of course, this is an
in-joke via artist Paul Ryan).

The New Universe possesses interesting
temporal characteristics. The White Event occurred on September
4, 1986, after which events moved in real time, at least up to
the War, sometime in later 1989, or early 1990. They interacted
with the Marvel Universe in 1991-1992 of real time, and were last
seen in 1994, at the conclusion of the Star Blast saga. It's
unlikely that the characters of the NU will be seen again (a true
shame), but I'd like to think that they should somehow stay in
real time. In addition, as the Prime One points out, since the
Living Tribunal has isolated them from the rest of the Universe,
they should be isolated from Eternity as well, meaning they won't
be a part of 'Marvel Time' (or lack thereof).--Snood.

byPrime Eternal

Clarifications:
Dave Landers, Mastodon, has no known connection to anyone outside
the New Universe, including:

Mastodon,

aka Elefante, a
member of Project X, who became extremely old and crippled when
his age suppression factor failed, @ Wolverine II#61

Mastodon of the
Ultraverse, Timothy Halloran, nearly one of the Exiles, Exiles I#1
(Ultraverse)